Our services — Audit & Assurance

Audit and assurance for UK branches of overseas companies

We provide audit services to UK branches and UK subsidiaries of overseas companies. We do this well because we partner with audit firms in other countries. This makes for more efficient audits.

Our audit clients are usually UK subsidiaries of overseas companies

Our audit clients tend to be UK subsidiaries or UK branches of overseas companies. This is important because to conduct these types of audits efficiently the auditor needs some special skills. For example, the auditor needs:

to be able to speak the language of the overseas company

to understand the accounting and tax rules of the overseas country

a presence in the overseas country

These skills mean that it’s often very difficult for small local companies to undertake international audits. For this reason, these types of audits are usually carried out by large, international audit firms. Our approach provides an economic and effective alternative to this.

Our approach to audit

Imagine an Italian haute couture company that opens a shop in Mayfair. Most of the administration work for the London shop is done in Italy by the Italian head office. A traditional audit would involve documents going back and forth between the Italian haed office and the London based auditor. This is usually time-consuming, expensive and inefficient. It’s also very frustrating, particularly if the audit team doesn’t speak Italian. We wouldn’t work this way (although we do speak Italian). Instead, we would do the audit through our UK / Italian joint venture audit partnership. Our UK team would do the UK bit and our Italian team the Italian bit. This saves time and effort and makes for a more efficient audit. This approach has many advantages. For example, this approach:

allows for controls to be tested in Italy

utilises JV staff that are located in both the UK and Italy

utilises JV staff that are experts in both the UK and Italy

We conduct efficient, control based audits

If you’re reading this article then you probably know the difference between substantive and control testing. However, just in case:

Substantive testing is where the auditor makes a list of lots of transactions and checks each one. This type of testing takes a long time and isn’t very efficient

Control testing is where the auditor checks the client’s internal procedures and controls work correctly. If they do, the auditor does less substantive testing.

Control based audits are much more efficient than substantive testing based audits. Working with an international partner enables us to test the internal controls of the overseas head-office, which makes for a more efficient and economic audit.

AccountsCo is a trading name of PG&E Professional Services Ltd., a company registered in England & Wales (Company number 7074536. VAT number GB 981 0085 26). PG&E Professional Services Ltd. is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales Practice Assurance Scheme and is registered with the Chartered Institute of Taxation as a firm of Chartered Tax Advisers and with The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport. The Company is registered to carry on audit work in the UK and Ireland by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales. Details about the audit registration can be viewed at www.auditregister.org.uk under the reference number 8181020. The Director’s details are kept at the registered office: 1 Purley Place, London, N1 1QA. Terms & Conditions